The invention relates to a component placement device that is provided with at least two component pick and place units, which are connected to a movable frame, and at least two component feeding devices. The component placement device is suitable for simultaneously picking-up, by means of the component pick and place units, components supplied by the component feeding devices. The invention also relates to a method for picking-up components by means of such a component placement device.
In a conventional component placement device, which is disclosed in European Patent Application No. EP-A 1-0092292, a number of component pick and place units can be moved collectively in X and Y directions between a number of adjacent component feeding devices and a substrate supported by a substrate support. The component pick and place units are separated by a certain pitch distance that is equal to the distance between the adjacent component feeding devices.
To place components on the substrate, the frame is moved to a position above the component feeding devices after which components are simultaneously picked-up from the component feeding devices by means of the adjacent component pick and place units. As the components are picked-up simultaneously, the time spent picking-up each of the components is relatively short. After the components have been picked-up by the component pick and place units, the frame is moved to a position above the substrate after which the components are simultaneously or sequentially placed on the appropriate positions on the substrate.
A drawback of such a conventional component placement device is that the components need to be supplied relatively accurately by means of component feeding devices, to ensure that the components can be picked-up simultaneously by the component pick and place units.
To complicate matters further, there has been a tendency over the past few years to reduce the size of components such that the dimensions of components that are to be picked-up by means of component pick and place units are in the order of 1 mm×½ mm or less. If the components are not supplied accurately, the components cannot be (or cannot not correctly be) picked-up simultaneously by means of the component pick and place units.
An object of the present invention to provide a component placement device that can be used to pick-up components simultaneously and accurately. Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for picking-up components, by means of a component placement device, simultaneously and accurately from component feeding devices.